"grin mockingly," c. 1400, perhaps from Scandinavian (compare dialectal Norwegian flira "giggle, laugh at nothing," dialectal Danish flire "to grin, sneer, titter"). Transitive sense from 1620s. Related: Fleered; fleering; fleeringly. As a noun from c. 1600.
also gastero-, before vowels gastr-, scientific word-forming element meaning "stomach," from Greek gastro-, combining form of gaster (genitive gastros) "belly, paunch; womb" (see gastric). Also used in compounds in ancient Greek, as gastrobarys "heavy with child."
Proto-Indo-European root meaning "body, form, appearance," probably a verbal root meaning "to appear."
It forms all or part of: corporal (adj.) "of or belonging to the body;" corporate; corporation; corporeal; corps; corpse; corpulence; corpulent; corpus; corpuscle; corsage; corse; corset; incorporeal; incorporate; leprechaun; midriff.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit krp- "form, body;" Avestan kerefsh "form, body;" Latin corpus "body" (living or dead); Old English hrif "belly," Old High German href "womb, belly, abdomen."
debilitating disease that affects the skin, 1560s, noun use of adjective scurvy "covered with scabs, diseased with scurvy, scorbutic" (early 15c.), a variant of scurfy. By 1560s the adjective also could mean "vile, low, mean, vulgar." Related: Scurvied.
It took on the narrower meaning of Dutch scheurbuik, French scorbut "scurvy," in reference to the disease characterized by swollen and bleeding gums, prostration, etc., perhaps from Old Norse skyrbjugr, which is perhaps literally "a swelling (bjugr) from drinking sour milk (skyr) on long sea voyages;" but OED has alternative etymology of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin, as "disease that lacerates the belly," from schoren "to lacerate" + Middle Low German buk, Dutch buik "belly."
"ridicule, mockery, subjection to ridicule or mockery," c. 1400, from Old French derision "derision, mockery" (13c.), from Latin derisionem (nominative derisio) "a laughing to scorn, mockery," noun of action from past-participle stem of deridere "ridicule," from de "down" (see de-) + ridere "to laugh" (see risible).
by 1650s, "of or pertaining to Abdera," in Thrace, whose citizens were proverbial as provincials who would laugh at anything or anyone they didn't understand (Abderian laughter), making their town the Hellenic equivalent of Gotham (q.v.). Especially (or alternatively) as it was the birthplace of Democritus the atomist, the "Laughing Philosopher" (born c. 460 B.C.E.) who observed human follies.
by 1968, "buttocks, ass," U.S. slang, the kind of thing that once sounded naughty on "Laugh-In" (and briefly was popularized by that program). As it often was used with you bet your ... it may be nonsense chosen for alliteration, but there may be some whiff of biped in it.
1650s, from Modern Latin gastricus, from Greek gaster (genitive gastros) "stomach, paunch, belly," often figurative of gluttony or greed, also "womb, uterus; sausage," by dissimilation from *graster, literally "eater, devourer," from gran "to gnaw, eat," from PIE root *gras- "to devour" (source also of Greek grastis "green fodder," Latin gramen "fodder, grass," Old English cærse "cress").